Geological Survey of Canterbury. 39 



4 



is not without foundation. Quicksands and swamps follow each other 

 here in unpleasant succession, and as the banks, mostly ice-worn rocks, 

 were too steep or too scrubby for the horses, we had to seek our way 

 through this labyrinth. For two days we toiled on, being sometimes 

 obliged to retrace our steps, after several hours march, to find a better 

 road, and we gained at last the shores of the lake, but not without 

 extricating the horses repeatedly with the greatest trouble, and having 

 ourselves various unpleasant adventures. There we camped in the 

 evening, and were awakened next morning by the bleating of sheep, 

 which we welcomed as a sign of approaching civilization. 



Lake Pukaki, which is a tine sheet of water, is surrounded like Lake 

 Tekapo by a large wall of morainic accumulations, several miles broad. 

 The view from its outlet up the broad valley of the Tasman towards 

 the Southern Alps, with Mount Cook in the centre, and a wooded 

 islet in the foreground, is really glorious ; and if we imagine smiling 

 villas and numerous villages and parks round its shores, there is no 

 lake in Europe which for the magnificence of the scenery could be 

 compared with it. Crossing the level alluvial deposits which separate 

 the morainic accumulations of Lake Ohau from those of the former lake, 

 we reached that third lake on April 21st. Although it is not so large as 

 its two neighbours, it has beautifully clear water, the two others, as 

 previously pointed out, being always rendered more or less opaque by 

 finely suspended matter, the results of the gigantic ice ploughs grinding 

 down, without intermission, the rocks at the head of their principal 

 affluents. Here and there clumps of forest trees adorn the hill sides, by 

 which its shores are rendered more picturesque than those of the two 

 other lakes which, with the exception of the wooded islet in Lake Pukaki, 

 are entirely devoid of timber. Lake Ohau is formed by the river Hopkins 

 and its eastern main branch the Dobson, so named by me in honour 

 of Mr. Edward Dobson, the then Provincial Engineer of Canterbury. 

 I determined to ascend first the last named river, and to reach it by 

 following the eastern shores of the lake. However, having travelled 

 several miles, the mountain sides gradually became so steep, that 

 we thought it impossible to proceed any further with the pack horses. 

 We were confirmed in this surmise by an accident to one of them, 

 which missed its footing, and rolled down to the lake, and was 

 only saved by a large rock lying close to the precipitous shore. We 

 therefore returned to Mr. Frazer's station, and crossed next day by a 

 pass in the Ben Ohau range (3,992 feet high), usually used by that 



